Reef nutrition

SPS STNing, any ideas?

Sicce silent 3.0 feeding 2 return nozzles.
RW-8 & WP25 powerheads in the tank, if I turn them up any higher they'll make fish crash into corals haha so pretty high turn over.

No chemical warfare that I know of, corals are growing into each other but fighting is still very minor.

By the way so far all plating/encrusting SPS is doing great, only sticks are affected.
 
Perfectly logical but here's the issue with that theory;

-STN started on frags from the slimer colony which sit on a rack far from any other coral and enough flow that it sways back & forth as the pump ramps up & down.
-The corals which actually touch each other and grow against each other (plating & encrusting) are 100% healthy
-The birdsnest and most recent to display STN is yet to touch any other coral and sits about 6 inches directly infront of the RW-8

so this is happen to corals regardless of where they are in the tank in relation to flow and regardless of whether they touch other corals or not.
 
Yeah keep things stable and in good parameters.

Also make sure your light is not blasting them with excessive UV.

Disasters happen fast in this hobby.

Recovery happens slow though :/
 
STN is still present, frequent water changes seem to have slowed it down and here's the most recent battery of tests;

Alk: 9
PH: 8.46
Calcium: 440
Magnesium: 1200

A regular Phosphate test kit reads 0, today I dusted off my Hanna Phosphorus ULR and it blinked 200 meaning measurement is outside its range. Considering how water changes affect the STN rate and Alae only grows on old frags isolated on a rack (CUC can't reach) tells me that there is a Phosphate issue, the only reason why algae on the rest of the tank is no where to be found is that I must have a great CUC, makes sense considering the fact that most of my livestock is herbivores/omnivores.

What do I do now? going to run a 2nd fuge and go back to Vodka, removing vodka from my dosing regiment must have let the Phosphates run wild and the SPS are paying the price, long term I'm going to end up employing GFO, I have a dual stage BRS reactor somewhere in a box.
 
Dang dude, I wish I could help. I know after I fixed my alk issues, it still took a week or more for it to stop STNing and start recuperating.

I had a very similar issue before with the (brown, thick, diatom-like) algae only growing on an isolated areas/rack, but all of this resolved itself over time with minor changes here and there. I think a GFO-based solution is definitely worth implementing sooner rather than later.
 
I'm really getting frustrated now, I accidentally came to the realization that I had an explosion of growth prior to this STN, haha I know that sounds odd "how do you not notice growth" but it wasn't till I was posting a pic of my tank on another post did I realize that the corals which are STNing had grown from frags to softball sized colonies in just over 6 months, so after such an explosion in growth how could they start crashing this way????? (sorry thinking my frustrations out loud)

Now for a more objective approach... I can't blame Alk because tank was running a solid 8 Dkh and after raising it to high 9's and noticing zero change I'm going back down to 8 (closer to natural sea parameters) Mg is good, ca is good, ph is fine and all the parameters are rock solid and have been during the period of good growth all these parameters have not changed.

I can't think of any possible reason other than nutrients, LPS are still thriving and growing like mad. This brings us to my current obstacle, I don't want to mess with nutrient export until I have a good means of measuring Phosphates, what I have that I'm using now is a Salifert Phosphate kit and a Hanna Ultra Low Range Phosphate.

Here's my problem;
Salifert - always measures zero
Hanna Ultra Low - always measure outside of max range (200 blinking on display)

So that tells me that either A. Salifert PO4 kit is trash or B. I'm above ultra low range but bellow the regular test kit's range??

Can anyone please recommend a kit that can actually tell me what my PO4 measurement is?

I don't like changing things in my tank without being able to monitor change or progress so I don't want to throw carbon, GFO or scrubber at this problem without knowing what I'm removing or at least be able to establish a base before any changes.
 
I've been doing weekly water changes ever since, water changer are not a solution for me in the long run because I simply can't get that many done as often as I need to (I've tried). So I either figure it out or leave the SPS world all together lol
 
I don't think John is suggesting them as a long term solution, and I know I'm not.

If I am seeing tissue loss in my tank, screw stability I'm hitting the reset button. I use NSW not salt mix, and I view as close as I can get to a 100% water change as "getting back to the goal." Once you get back to "normal water" you can adjust your dosing, constant huge water changes are not intended as a long term fix.

I've personally never felt like it made the problem worse, and the times I've been too busy to lug 100+ gallons of water around and tried to "fix" things without water changes I've seen what I felt were worse results.

I feel I'm supposed to name drop here, so I'll admit that I got the idea that 100% wc's from Calfo's book.

In cases were I don't know what's wrong exactly, but I see something I don't like in tank, wc wc wc. It could be something as simple as a dead snail rotting behind your rocks. It could be your growth spurt used up something the corals need. It could be aliens.

Get back to normal and go from there.
 
I think it's aliens

I guess I'll give water changes one more shot, I'll dig out some of my old powerheads and spare buckets. I'll shoot for several consecutive water changes & see what happens...

Still I need a way to measure phosphates, I suppose I could give Elos a try.
 
Could the good growth cause the bases to be shaded and that start STN?

Just a guess...
I'm far, very far, from being knowledgeable...
 
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